Suzie Costello (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
superiorspectre) wrote2009-03-16 02:22 am
superiorspectre) wrote2009-03-16 02:22 am
Entry tags:
{Fic?} You left me -- Sire -- two Legacies
[[This extends to both BTR and AA universes (and that took some doing, making this work for two VERY DIFFERENT Jacks), in the form of a sheaf of papers hidden away in Suzie's room. People with the opportunity to search her room in either 'verse may just find it in-game. This is shamelessly ripped off from based on this -- much better! -- fic (IT IS AWESOME! GO READ IT NOW!), but I wanted to see where my AU!Suzie would go with a chance to unburden herself in writing, and how it would play out compared to the confessions of canon!Suzie.]]
There are things I remember, Jack. For all that I've forgotten so much of when we first met, thanks to a healthy dose of Retcon, I'm not completely clueless. It was a Weevil attack, wasn't it? Details are, of course, hazy, but some of it, I can piece together. It would've been when I was doing on-site server maintenance -- not the best job, and I was overqualified, but I was too busy running to care that much.
I know you've seen the reports. You probably know more than I do about all those jobs gone wrong, the trail going from city to city. Did you ever catch on to why I quit so many jobs, despite doing so well? I know you hesitated to hire me for just that reason. "This is the one job you can never quit," you said. But if you knew, or guessed, I'd like to think you understood. You know quite a bit about ill-advised workplace relationships, don't you?
And that's why I never fucked you, Jack. Not because I wasn't attracted, not because your eyes were cold, not because you smile like a predator -- and don't fool yourself; you do. But I'd had worse, or so I thought at the time. But it was you or Torchwood, and I wasn't about to risk losing the best job of my life due to death or Retcon because I fucked the Captain and things went sour.
But I digress.
This is about the first time we met, Jack, and where we went from there. And it's important that I get this down, especially now.
I'd taken the company van out, had to do some emergency maintenance... The client in question had a server go rather spectacularly down, and off I went to figure out just what had gone wrong. That much is in the work logs. The rest is flashes. You in that bloody coat -- I swear, Jack, you love that thing like a child. I'm sure you were expecting a fainting damsel, not an angry technician with a brown belt in judo. Not that it would have saved me, but from the flashes of memory I get, I think I handled myself well enough. It's the fight I remember more than anything: the way its breath stank, the teeth -- God, the teeth -- and the fact that I never screamed.
You commended me for it later, Jack. But I learnt a long time ago that screaming gets you nowhere. I couldn't stop to think, "This can't be real"; I'm too used to having to survive in situations where a moment of shock means death or worse, situations I threw myself into just so I'd know I could survive them. Those incidents, I know you never found out about. There are no police reports, no charges filed, nothing official. The authorities, I've found, are never as helpful as people would like to think. Best not to get them involved.
So no, I didn't stop to question the reality of the thing trying to eat me. I just acted. You admire that kind of thing, don't you?
I'm good, I know, but I still would have died. And then came the saviour in a longcoat. You, Jack, and that's where this fades to flashes, guesswork, and questions. Talking over drinks, a look of admiration on your face. Did I impress you, Jack, or was that standard procedure? You bandaged my wounds: did you also try to get me into bed, the way you did most sentient creatures that crossed your path?
Don't answer that -- my sense of respect for you, such as it is, wouldn't survive a 'yes', and my ego couldn't bear a 'no'.
Just chance that we met again, Jack, and you really ought to consider another coat, because, really, Captain, an RAF greatcoat is memorable. Memorable enough to trip the Retcon. That said, I know that even with my sterling example, you won't give it up. It's your prop, your armour, a safe, comfortable layer between you and the rest of the world. And it's more than even that, isn't it? It's a costume, just like the superheroes in the comics. 'Jack Harkness' wasn't your real name -- I'd have to have been an idiot not to notice that, even before I came here. It's like you tried to play the hero, with your clever name and your fancy costume, and eventually the costume swallowed up the man underneath.
I wonder about that man -- the real one, if any part of you can claim reality.
The man I met that first night, when I was riding a wave of terror and adrenaline... He was impressive for all the wrong reasons. The leading man in his own little drama, with cold, cold eyes and a smile that was far too self-assured to be comforting. I only saw how tired you were on reflection, once I'd learnt that it was just you in the Hub, trying to hold Cardiff together on your own. You may not need to sleep, Jack, but even I could see how bloody exhausted you were, once I was done being dazzled by the role you were playing.
And, to be perfectly honest, Jack, I don't know who I'm really addressing this to -- the man I met then, the hypocrite in a hero's clothing, or the one I know now. Maybe there's not as much difference as I'd like to think, but hope is a small enough thing that I'd like to indulge it for a little while longer.
I think you can understand that, Jack. Am I wrong?
Either way, it doesn't matter. I don't intend for you to read this. Not now, at any rate. Maybe someday, when we've come to something more than this uneasy truce that exists between us. I'm rambling on far too much, but it helps. I can imagine you reading this, understanding things that I never made clear, and it's almost comforting. I find myself wondering, could I break your heart? Or did I do that already, in a future I don't remember?
I don't think I did, Jack. Not really. I'd like to think I was a wake-up call of sorts, but even that comes dangerously close to stroking my own ego. But in order for me to break your heart, you'd have had to let yourself care about us. At the time, you didn't.
...Why care about people who just die anyway, right, Jack?
Something's changed though, hasn't it? Maybe I had something to do with it, and maybe not, but the difference is obvious enough, even without the glimpses into your subconscious. Someone got inside your head. Someone made you care.
Did I ever get to see that? Or was it too little, too late? I know what you're capable of, how well you read people, and you're better at it than I am. So that has to be my answer, because if you'd cared for us at all, you'd have noticed me falling, right?
...Right, Jack?
I saw you again by purest chance, and when I met your eyes, there was neither intent nor recognition in them, but the simple fact of you was enough. You know how bloody curious I am. Was it any wonder I started tracking you?
The day you rewarded all that diligent stalking with a job offer was the best day of my life. I'm not joking. Granted, my life isn't known for its good days, but that still means something.
And then it was the two of us, alone in the Hub. I asked what had happened to the previous team, and you just said one word and changed the subject. "Dead," you told me, and you thought you were being so professional, so cold, but I think it was the first time you showed me a real emotion.
You're not quite as inscrutable as you like to think.
There were offers from Torchwood 1, so many offers of personnel, and we did need the manpower, but not from them, you said. So we shipped them the interesting corpses and muddled through on our own, and when I finally met the late Ms. Hartman, I understood. She didn't want to send you help, Jack; she wanted to send you a keeper. And you'd had enough of being kept by then, I'm sure. She thought you were dangerous, unstable, too obsessed with the Doctor, and for all the wrong reasons.
She was right about all of it, but she was also enough of a domineering bitch that I felt justified in ignoring her. I actually had some sympathy for you after that. And when you formally cut ties to them, once you had enough of a team to work independently, I really couldn't blame you.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. There is a point to this little history, tracing how I know you, how I felt, how I became the sort of person who would do the things I would've done, or will do. Did do, for you and the rest of Torchwood. It's important that I get this out, get this behind me, because you're not the man I remember, and I can't keep thinking that you are.
And that's why I wanted to give this to you, and why I know how that I won't. Because while I may have things sorted in my head once I finish this, right now it's a jumble of who you are, here and now, and who you were, or who I thought you were. And as much as I'm sure this would be an enlightening read, quite a bit of this is neither fair nor kind. You don't deserve this, Jack, and it took a good long look into your subconscious to make me see that. I'm sorry.
But let's get back to the man I thought I knew, the one who colours every assumption I've been making about Jack Harkness. Let's just keep taking him (and myself) apart until we get to the truth, one way or another.
I'm addressing this to you still, Jack, or my hazy mental concept of you, because... as I said, it's comforting. Funny, that.
The only two people in the Hub: you'd think we'd get to know each other quite well, but all we got to know was how each of us took our coffee, our take-out preferences, and the exact points at which late nights and nonstop alien activity made us bitchy. There wasn't time for more than that, for more than meaningless flirtation and everyday banalities.
I learnt to insinuate myself into your routines, to keep track of all the things you couldn't be bothered to remember. I did just about everyone's job at one point or another, except perhaps Owen's. I never learnt to like you, or trust you, for all the work you put into appearing both likeable and trustworthy.
Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed the banter. I liked spending time with you, liked the job, even though it made me crazy (or crazier). And I came to look to you in a crisis -- you were good with crises. But you were all charm and no substance, for all the jokes and laughter and improbable-sounding stories. I learnt isolated things about you, but, mostly, you kept yourself hidden away. How could I like or trust someone I didn't know, who went to such lengths not to be known?
It's all right, though. I did the same. I hid myself from you every bit as much as you hid yourself from me. Because if I was weak, if I couldn't handle the job, if I let you see what I really was, you wouldn't want me anymore, and you'd take me out of the one job that seemed to really mean something.
Did I think you'd use me up and throw me away? Yes. It's something I have long experience with, starting with my father and going on at length. I won't bore you with the details; I'm not interested in garnering pity. What matters is that, because of that history, everything I was focused on one simple goal: make myself indispensable.
And so I smiled, and joked, and threatened you with blunt objects when the flirting hit a bit too close to home. And in that respect, at least, I think we came to understand each other. We could flirt with the best of them, and it never meant a thing.
It started to wear on me, the job did. Weevils and space-junk and shit, Jack. Sometimes it was beautiful, wonderful, like the universe was full of the most amazing things, but more and more, it just wore me down, and still there was no going back. I couldn't imagine wanting to go back. Normal life was no better. Worse, in some respects.
And then Tosh came. You rescued her from a UNIT prison, and she was beautiful and brilliant -- better than I was -- and she loved it, all of it. Watching her fall in love with this job got me in love with Torchwood all over again, and in love with her as well.
There. I've said it. I fell in love with Toshiko Sato. I couldn't act on it, not then. She was too beautiful, too innocent, too good. She didn't deserve to slog through the filth with us, but she deserved UNIT even less.
Well, that resolve lasted for a little while, at least. This job breaks people down in all sorts of ways. But it wouldn't be until after Owen came that I gave in, and that's getting ahead of myself again. (I wonder if you knew; we tried so hard to keep it secret, but you always did have an instinct for who was fucking whom.)
The point is, she made things better for a while. And you adored her, I know, even as you told yourself you didn't care. Anyone with sense would adore Tosh. So there we were, the three of us. It was a good time, in a strange, only-slightly-less-overworked-than-we-were-before sort of way. But we were both courting her, in our own ways.
That was the best time in Torchwood for me: we were all overworked and bitchy and loving every second of it.
And then came Owen. Poor, broken Owen, who completely destroyed any sympathy most people would have for him on his first day... So determined not to be pitied. I admired that. Tosh fell in love with that. And that's when things started going really, really wrong.
I won't attempt to describe the entirety of the emotional clusterfuck that took place at that point. Owen's bad at subtle, bad at acting like he's not fucking someone, and... I hadn't noticed at first, how she felt about him. She always did keep those things to herself, and I was afraid to look too closely, when my own feelings were involved. I won't say it didn't hurt, knowing that she wanted him...
But he wanted me, and I needed some trainwreck to throw myself into. He didn't ask questions, didn't want anything from me other than the sex, and I could pretend it was enough. If I was damaged goods, we both were, and he was in no position to care about my past.
How much of it did you know about at the time, really? 'Don't tell Jack' was a favourite pastime for all of us, but were you actually oblivious, or just uncaring? Because under that good old Torchwood camaraderie, things were going to hell. Owen was unstable, Tosh lovesick and distracted and intermittently miserable, and I... I was falling, Jack. That's when it started, right there. The Pilgrim meetings, the Retcon, all of it. Because I knew the woman I loved would be disgusted by the real Suzie Costello, so I found someone who didn't care. Because the one other release I could find made her miserable. Because I had nothing real except the job, and I was was slowly but surely becoming less indispensable.
I needed to talk to someone, Jack. You were always removed, acting like things would sort themselves out with us if you just left them alone. And I didn't dare look weak in front of you.
Tosh would be horrified.
Owen didn't care.
So: Pilgrim and Max. And between talking to Max and fucking Owen, things were bearable for a while, by which I mean they weren't getting worse.
And then came Ianto Jones, and I started to worry. Ianto turned efficiency into an art form. Oh, I liked him -- shy little thing, with his own crop of secrets that I never could get out of him. But the fact remains, Jack, I wasn't essential anymore. And I'd seen too much to be let go gracefully. And, of course, the stupidity of getting involved with Owen. I've already said he failed at subtlety, and if you didn't seem to care about that... Well, the usual adventures in sexual harassment aside, you didn't seem to care about much.
So that brings us almost to where we are now, Jack. I didn't trust you, and that made me start looking for a way out. And that led me right back to Max, with his subconscious more or less at my mercy.
I started priming him. That, I'll admit to. He was meant to extract me, at best -- avenge me, at worst. But I never intended to make him murder anyone --except perhaps you.
I've read that crossed-out bit five times over, and I still can't tell if I'm joking. I don't think I'm currently capable of murder, even by proxy, but the thought of revenge had crossed my mind. If I was dead or Retconned or cast away...
And what if I'd died in the line of duty, a nice, normal death? Did I think I was too good, that I wouldn't die on my own? Was I so miserable it just didn't matter? I know that thought was knocking around the back of my head, but putting it down here, it seems so stupid. So mad.
Maybe I'm already too far gone. Maybe you ought to just kill me like your subconscious has threatened to. I don't know. The things I've done are bad enough even before you bring in the things I would've done, and although I can give you ten thousand reasons, none of them can excuse any of it, nor should they.
I can picture you shaking your head as you read this, wondering how I could've been so paranoid, how I could've trusted you so little. But when did you give me a reason to believe in you, Jack? The rest of them might've been fooled by your benign exterior (though I doubt it), might've reacted with shock to what lay beneath the surface of the man they trusted... But the monster in you was the first thing I met, staring at me from behind the eyes of a charming bastard in a fancy coat.
The things I've seen, Jack... You're so much better than I imagined then, and also so much worse. I thought I knew what I had to fear when it came to you, and I was so very, very wrong. But I know how far I can trust you, now, and I know that, up to that point, I can trust you, completely. That's something I could never say before.
There were good times, Jack. I don't want you to think I've got nothing but bitterness. Remember what Owen dubbed the Spiders from Mars? That must've been ages ago for you, but it was my last day at the Hub. It was a good day. It really was. Bowie jokes and giddiness and you sang, just one line, but it was enough to get Owen started, and then Tosh was giggling, and Ianto... Well, Ianto made that face he makes when he's amused and doesn't want to show it.
And that time the Hub's cooling systems broke down... You might find it funny that one of my best memories of you involves both of us being naked, but that was... It was good, Jack. I keep saying that, but oh, it was. Of course, Owen stayed home: when forced to choose between having to see you naked and staying home with a beer, I think the choice was obvious. And I don't know, maybe I was expecting something more along the lines of Torchwood weapons training, your own brand of trial-by-sexual-harassment, but that day was different.
(Oh, I know what you were doing with the weapons training, Jack -- testing us to see how much we'd take, where our boundaries were, how interested in you we might be, how well we handled distractions... Your brain never stops working, even when it just seems like you're out to cop a feel. It's brilliant, in its way. Still, I don't regret the part where I almost kneed you in the groin. I wasn't yet so involved that I couldn't bear to lose this job, and the fact that I didn't, and that you just apologised, backed down, and only then mentioned that verbal warning would have been sufficient, working a warning of your own in... That made me respect you, a bit.)
Anyway, 'Clothing-Optional Day at the Hub', as you put it, was just business as usual, even with the two of us naked. Tosh was braver than I expected, programming in her knickers... and then there was Ianto, suffering in his shirtsleeves and trying not to look at much of anything, but especially not you. I'm sure he thought he was being subtle.
Skin and sweat and all of us trying to get the cooling fixed in a hateful, humid sewer, with more than enough machinery going to make the temperature skyrocket. And everything went off smoothly, even if it meant I was crawling through access tubes wearing only a toolbelt. I even managed to coax Tosh into chiming in when I called Owen and whispered suggestive things over the phone -- you were gone for that bit, and if you've got a backup copy recorded, other than the standard security recording that I deleted, I really don't want to know about it. Still, even if Owen refused to come in, we were determined to give him something to remember that day by.
Funny, the things you remember at times like this. Still, a good day.
...I don't know how to feel now, Jack. All I can do is put things together and pretend they make sense; the good and the bad, the real and the purely imaginary. It frightens me, how clearly I can see the road leading right up to murder and betrayal, and it doesn't matter that I was under the influence of an alien artefact -- the seeds had already been planted. I can see exactly how it could have happened, how well I was primed for it... Too fucking right, it frightens me.
And I think I'm starting to see you now. Not the man I thought you were, not the saint you try to be or the monster you think you are, deep down. You're a human, just like the rest of us. Horribly fucked-up, prone to making truly epic mistakes, and forced to deal with things no human should, but... Human. And, in the end, I think you're good. Better than you give yourself credit for.
You might think I have you on a pedestal, Jack, but I really don't. I know you're flawed, and the fact that I was wrong about you before doesn't mean I think you're infallible now. I can see the darkness in you, after all, and the fact that I can see it says something about how very hard you try to keep it hidden.
But I'm not used to loyalty. I'm not used to trust. I'm still learning just how to do this. I'm bound to get it wrong, and sometimes... sometimes it seems like you're all I have that I can be sure of, and that's vaguely hilarious, in a sick way. Maybe I'll go too far for you, but it's better than not far enough, better than becoming the thing that's waiting just over the horizon, a universe away.
Sometimes I want to plead with you to help me.
Sometimes I think that you don't even know how to help yourself.
Would it be better if we leaned on each other? I'd try, for you. You've given me honest answers, you've shown that you really can care about us... Yes, that's enough for me to try. But I don't know if it would make things better or worse. Put the two of us in a room and things turn volatile. Too many secrets, too many weaknesses, and I don't know if we know each other too well or not well enough, the way we set each other off.
...You won't give me an answer, Jack, because you won't see this. And maybe I should make sure of that. Maybe I should burn this, but I already know I won't.
Some things should be said. Some things need to be remembered. And maybe I will be able to show you this, one day, when the worst of all of this is behind us both.
I hope so. But I'm not holding my breath.
There are things I remember, Jack. For all that I've forgotten so much of when we first met, thanks to a healthy dose of Retcon, I'm not completely clueless. It was a Weevil attack, wasn't it? Details are, of course, hazy, but some of it, I can piece together. It would've been when I was doing on-site server maintenance -- not the best job, and I was overqualified, but I was too busy running to care that much.
I know you've seen the reports. You probably know more than I do about all those jobs gone wrong, the trail going from city to city. Did you ever catch on to why I quit so many jobs, despite doing so well? I know you hesitated to hire me for just that reason. "This is the one job you can never quit," you said. But if you knew, or guessed, I'd like to think you understood. You know quite a bit about ill-advised workplace relationships, don't you?
And that's why I never fucked you, Jack. Not because I wasn't attracted, not because your eyes were cold, not because you smile like a predator -- and don't fool yourself; you do. But I'd had worse, or so I thought at the time. But it was you or Torchwood, and I wasn't about to risk losing the best job of my life due to death or Retcon because I fucked the Captain and things went sour.
But I digress.
This is about the first time we met, Jack, and where we went from there. And it's important that I get this down, especially now.
I'd taken the company van out, had to do some emergency maintenance... The client in question had a server go rather spectacularly down, and off I went to figure out just what had gone wrong. That much is in the work logs. The rest is flashes. You in that bloody coat -- I swear, Jack, you love that thing like a child. I'm sure you were expecting a fainting damsel, not an angry technician with a brown belt in judo. Not that it would have saved me, but from the flashes of memory I get, I think I handled myself well enough. It's the fight I remember more than anything: the way its breath stank, the teeth -- God, the teeth -- and the fact that I never screamed.
You commended me for it later, Jack. But I learnt a long time ago that screaming gets you nowhere. I couldn't stop to think, "This can't be real"; I'm too used to having to survive in situations where a moment of shock means death or worse, situations I threw myself into just so I'd know I could survive them. Those incidents, I know you never found out about. There are no police reports, no charges filed, nothing official. The authorities, I've found, are never as helpful as people would like to think. Best not to get them involved.
So no, I didn't stop to question the reality of the thing trying to eat me. I just acted. You admire that kind of thing, don't you?
I'm good, I know, but I still would have died. And then came the saviour in a longcoat. You, Jack, and that's where this fades to flashes, guesswork, and questions. Talking over drinks, a look of admiration on your face. Did I impress you, Jack, or was that standard procedure? You bandaged my wounds: did you also try to get me into bed, the way you did most sentient creatures that crossed your path?
Don't answer that -- my sense of respect for you, such as it is, wouldn't survive a 'yes', and my ego couldn't bear a 'no'.
Just chance that we met again, Jack, and you really ought to consider another coat, because, really, Captain, an RAF greatcoat is memorable. Memorable enough to trip the Retcon. That said, I know that even with my sterling example, you won't give it up. It's your prop, your armour, a safe, comfortable layer between you and the rest of the world. And it's more than even that, isn't it? It's a costume, just like the superheroes in the comics. 'Jack Harkness' wasn't your real name -- I'd have to have been an idiot not to notice that, even before I came here. It's like you tried to play the hero, with your clever name and your fancy costume, and eventually the costume swallowed up the man underneath.
I wonder about that man -- the real one, if any part of you can claim reality.
The man I met that first night, when I was riding a wave of terror and adrenaline... He was impressive for all the wrong reasons. The leading man in his own little drama, with cold, cold eyes and a smile that was far too self-assured to be comforting. I only saw how tired you were on reflection, once I'd learnt that it was just you in the Hub, trying to hold Cardiff together on your own. You may not need to sleep, Jack, but even I could see how bloody exhausted you were, once I was done being dazzled by the role you were playing.
And, to be perfectly honest, Jack, I don't know who I'm really addressing this to -- the man I met then, the hypocrite in a hero's clothing, or the one I know now. Maybe there's not as much difference as I'd like to think, but hope is a small enough thing that I'd like to indulge it for a little while longer.
I think you can understand that, Jack. Am I wrong?
Either way, it doesn't matter. I don't intend for you to read this. Not now, at any rate. Maybe someday, when we've come to something more than this uneasy truce that exists between us. I'm rambling on far too much, but it helps. I can imagine you reading this, understanding things that I never made clear, and it's almost comforting. I find myself wondering, could I break your heart? Or did I do that already, in a future I don't remember?
I don't think I did, Jack. Not really. I'd like to think I was a wake-up call of sorts, but even that comes dangerously close to stroking my own ego. But in order for me to break your heart, you'd have had to let yourself care about us. At the time, you didn't.
...Why care about people who just die anyway, right, Jack?
Something's changed though, hasn't it? Maybe I had something to do with it, and maybe not, but the difference is obvious enough, even without the glimpses into your subconscious. Someone got inside your head. Someone made you care.
Did I ever get to see that? Or was it too little, too late? I know what you're capable of, how well you read people, and you're better at it than I am. So that has to be my answer, because if you'd cared for us at all, you'd have noticed me falling, right?
...Right, Jack?
I saw you again by purest chance, and when I met your eyes, there was neither intent nor recognition in them, but the simple fact of you was enough. You know how bloody curious I am. Was it any wonder I started tracking you?
The day you rewarded all that diligent stalking with a job offer was the best day of my life. I'm not joking. Granted, my life isn't known for its good days, but that still means something.
And then it was the two of us, alone in the Hub. I asked what had happened to the previous team, and you just said one word and changed the subject. "Dead," you told me, and you thought you were being so professional, so cold, but I think it was the first time you showed me a real emotion.
You're not quite as inscrutable as you like to think.
There were offers from Torchwood 1, so many offers of personnel, and we did need the manpower, but not from them, you said. So we shipped them the interesting corpses and muddled through on our own, and when I finally met the late Ms. Hartman, I understood. She didn't want to send you help, Jack; she wanted to send you a keeper. And you'd had enough of being kept by then, I'm sure. She thought you were dangerous, unstable, too obsessed with the Doctor, and for all the wrong reasons.
She was right about all of it, but she was also enough of a domineering bitch that I felt justified in ignoring her. I actually had some sympathy for you after that. And when you formally cut ties to them, once you had enough of a team to work independently, I really couldn't blame you.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. There is a point to this little history, tracing how I know you, how I felt, how I became the sort of person who would do the things I would've done, or will do. Did do, for you and the rest of Torchwood. It's important that I get this out, get this behind me, because you're not the man I remember, and I can't keep thinking that you are.
And that's why I wanted to give this to you, and why I know how that I won't. Because while I may have things sorted in my head once I finish this, right now it's a jumble of who you are, here and now, and who you were, or who I thought you were. And as much as I'm sure this would be an enlightening read, quite a bit of this is neither fair nor kind. You don't deserve this, Jack, and it took a good long look into your subconscious to make me see that. I'm sorry.
But let's get back to the man I thought I knew, the one who colours every assumption I've been making about Jack Harkness. Let's just keep taking him (and myself) apart until we get to the truth, one way or another.
I'm addressing this to you still, Jack, or my hazy mental concept of you, because... as I said, it's comforting. Funny, that.
The only two people in the Hub: you'd think we'd get to know each other quite well, but all we got to know was how each of us took our coffee, our take-out preferences, and the exact points at which late nights and nonstop alien activity made us bitchy. There wasn't time for more than that, for more than meaningless flirtation and everyday banalities.
I learnt to insinuate myself into your routines, to keep track of all the things you couldn't be bothered to remember. I did just about everyone's job at one point or another, except perhaps Owen's. I never learnt to like you, or trust you, for all the work you put into appearing both likeable and trustworthy.
Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed the banter. I liked spending time with you, liked the job, even though it made me crazy (or crazier). And I came to look to you in a crisis -- you were good with crises. But you were all charm and no substance, for all the jokes and laughter and improbable-sounding stories. I learnt isolated things about you, but, mostly, you kept yourself hidden away. How could I like or trust someone I didn't know, who went to such lengths not to be known?
It's all right, though. I did the same. I hid myself from you every bit as much as you hid yourself from me. Because if I was weak, if I couldn't handle the job, if I let you see what I really was, you wouldn't want me anymore, and you'd take me out of the one job that seemed to really mean something.
Did I think you'd use me up and throw me away? Yes. It's something I have long experience with, starting with my father and going on at length. I won't bore you with the details; I'm not interested in garnering pity. What matters is that, because of that history, everything I was focused on one simple goal: make myself indispensable.
And so I smiled, and joked, and threatened you with blunt objects when the flirting hit a bit too close to home. And in that respect, at least, I think we came to understand each other. We could flirt with the best of them, and it never meant a thing.
It started to wear on me, the job did. Weevils and space-junk and shit, Jack. Sometimes it was beautiful, wonderful, like the universe was full of the most amazing things, but more and more, it just wore me down, and still there was no going back. I couldn't imagine wanting to go back. Normal life was no better. Worse, in some respects.
And then Tosh came. You rescued her from a UNIT prison, and she was beautiful and brilliant -- better than I was -- and she loved it, all of it. Watching her fall in love with this job got me in love with Torchwood all over again, and in love with her as well.
There. I've said it. I fell in love with Toshiko Sato. I couldn't act on it, not then. She was too beautiful, too innocent, too good. She didn't deserve to slog through the filth with us, but she deserved UNIT even less.
Well, that resolve lasted for a little while, at least. This job breaks people down in all sorts of ways. But it wouldn't be until after Owen came that I gave in, and that's getting ahead of myself again. (I wonder if you knew; we tried so hard to keep it secret, but you always did have an instinct for who was fucking whom.)
The point is, she made things better for a while. And you adored her, I know, even as you told yourself you didn't care. Anyone with sense would adore Tosh. So there we were, the three of us. It was a good time, in a strange, only-slightly-less-overworked-than-we-were-before sort of way. But we were both courting her, in our own ways.
That was the best time in Torchwood for me: we were all overworked and bitchy and loving every second of it.
And then came Owen. Poor, broken Owen, who completely destroyed any sympathy most people would have for him on his first day... So determined not to be pitied. I admired that. Tosh fell in love with that. And that's when things started going really, really wrong.
I won't attempt to describe the entirety of the emotional clusterfuck that took place at that point. Owen's bad at subtle, bad at acting like he's not fucking someone, and... I hadn't noticed at first, how she felt about him. She always did keep those things to herself, and I was afraid to look too closely, when my own feelings were involved. I won't say it didn't hurt, knowing that she wanted him...
But he wanted me, and I needed some trainwreck to throw myself into. He didn't ask questions, didn't want anything from me other than the sex, and I could pretend it was enough. If I was damaged goods, we both were, and he was in no position to care about my past.
How much of it did you know about at the time, really? 'Don't tell Jack' was a favourite pastime for all of us, but were you actually oblivious, or just uncaring? Because under that good old Torchwood camaraderie, things were going to hell. Owen was unstable, Tosh lovesick and distracted and intermittently miserable, and I... I was falling, Jack. That's when it started, right there. The Pilgrim meetings, the Retcon, all of it. Because I knew the woman I loved would be disgusted by the real Suzie Costello, so I found someone who didn't care. Because the one other release I could find made her miserable. Because I had nothing real except the job, and I was was slowly but surely becoming less indispensable.
I needed to talk to someone, Jack. You were always removed, acting like things would sort themselves out with us if you just left them alone. And I didn't dare look weak in front of you.
Tosh would be horrified.
Owen didn't care.
So: Pilgrim and Max. And between talking to Max and fucking Owen, things were bearable for a while, by which I mean they weren't getting worse.
And then came Ianto Jones, and I started to worry. Ianto turned efficiency into an art form. Oh, I liked him -- shy little thing, with his own crop of secrets that I never could get out of him. But the fact remains, Jack, I wasn't essential anymore. And I'd seen too much to be let go gracefully. And, of course, the stupidity of getting involved with Owen. I've already said he failed at subtlety, and if you didn't seem to care about that... Well, the usual adventures in sexual harassment aside, you didn't seem to care about much.
So that brings us almost to where we are now, Jack. I didn't trust you, and that made me start looking for a way out. And that led me right back to Max, with his subconscious more or less at my mercy.
I started priming him. That, I'll admit to. He was meant to extract me, at best -- avenge me, at worst. But I never intended to make him murder anyone --
I've read that crossed-out bit five times over, and I still can't tell if I'm joking. I don't think I'm currently capable of murder, even by proxy, but the thought of revenge had crossed my mind. If I was dead or Retconned or cast away...
And what if I'd died in the line of duty, a nice, normal death? Did I think I was too good, that I wouldn't die on my own? Was I so miserable it just didn't matter? I know that thought was knocking around the back of my head, but putting it down here, it seems so stupid. So mad.
Maybe I'm already too far gone. Maybe you ought to just kill me like your subconscious has threatened to. I don't know. The things I've done are bad enough even before you bring in the things I would've done, and although I can give you ten thousand reasons, none of them can excuse any of it, nor should they.
I can picture you shaking your head as you read this, wondering how I could've been so paranoid, how I could've trusted you so little. But when did you give me a reason to believe in you, Jack? The rest of them might've been fooled by your benign exterior (though I doubt it), might've reacted with shock to what lay beneath the surface of the man they trusted... But the monster in you was the first thing I met, staring at me from behind the eyes of a charming bastard in a fancy coat.
The things I've seen, Jack... You're so much better than I imagined then, and also so much worse. I thought I knew what I had to fear when it came to you, and I was so very, very wrong. But I know how far I can trust you, now, and I know that, up to that point, I can trust you, completely. That's something I could never say before.
There were good times, Jack. I don't want you to think I've got nothing but bitterness. Remember what Owen dubbed the Spiders from Mars? That must've been ages ago for you, but it was my last day at the Hub. It was a good day. It really was. Bowie jokes and giddiness and you sang, just one line, but it was enough to get Owen started, and then Tosh was giggling, and Ianto... Well, Ianto made that face he makes when he's amused and doesn't want to show it.
And that time the Hub's cooling systems broke down... You might find it funny that one of my best memories of you involves both of us being naked, but that was... It was good, Jack. I keep saying that, but oh, it was. Of course, Owen stayed home: when forced to choose between having to see you naked and staying home with a beer, I think the choice was obvious. And I don't know, maybe I was expecting something more along the lines of Torchwood weapons training, your own brand of trial-by-sexual-harassment, but that day was different.
(Oh, I know what you were doing with the weapons training, Jack -- testing us to see how much we'd take, where our boundaries were, how interested in you we might be, how well we handled distractions... Your brain never stops working, even when it just seems like you're out to cop a feel. It's brilliant, in its way. Still, I don't regret the part where I almost kneed you in the groin. I wasn't yet so involved that I couldn't bear to lose this job, and the fact that I didn't, and that you just apologised, backed down, and only then mentioned that verbal warning would have been sufficient, working a warning of your own in... That made me respect you, a bit.)
Anyway, 'Clothing-Optional Day at the Hub', as you put it, was just business as usual, even with the two of us naked. Tosh was braver than I expected, programming in her knickers... and then there was Ianto, suffering in his shirtsleeves and trying not to look at much of anything, but especially not you. I'm sure he thought he was being subtle.
Skin and sweat and all of us trying to get the cooling fixed in a hateful, humid sewer, with more than enough machinery going to make the temperature skyrocket. And everything went off smoothly, even if it meant I was crawling through access tubes wearing only a toolbelt. I even managed to coax Tosh into chiming in when I called Owen and whispered suggestive things over the phone -- you were gone for that bit, and if you've got a backup copy recorded, other than the standard security recording that I deleted, I really don't want to know about it. Still, even if Owen refused to come in, we were determined to give him something to remember that day by.
Funny, the things you remember at times like this. Still, a good day.
...I don't know how to feel now, Jack. All I can do is put things together and pretend they make sense; the good and the bad, the real and the purely imaginary. It frightens me, how clearly I can see the road leading right up to murder and betrayal, and it doesn't matter that I was under the influence of an alien artefact -- the seeds had already been planted. I can see exactly how it could have happened, how well I was primed for it... Too fucking right, it frightens me.
And I think I'm starting to see you now. Not the man I thought you were, not the saint you try to be or the monster you think you are, deep down. You're a human, just like the rest of us. Horribly fucked-up, prone to making truly epic mistakes, and forced to deal with things no human should, but... Human. And, in the end, I think you're good. Better than you give yourself credit for.
You might think I have you on a pedestal, Jack, but I really don't. I know you're flawed, and the fact that I was wrong about you before doesn't mean I think you're infallible now. I can see the darkness in you, after all, and the fact that I can see it says something about how very hard you try to keep it hidden.
But I'm not used to loyalty. I'm not used to trust. I'm still learning just how to do this. I'm bound to get it wrong, and sometimes... sometimes it seems like you're all I have that I can be sure of, and that's vaguely hilarious, in a sick way. Maybe I'll go too far for you, but it's better than not far enough, better than becoming the thing that's waiting just over the horizon, a universe away.
Sometimes I want to plead with you to help me.
Sometimes I think that you don't even know how to help yourself.
Would it be better if we leaned on each other? I'd try, for you. You've given me honest answers, you've shown that you really can care about us... Yes, that's enough for me to try. But I don't know if it would make things better or worse. Put the two of us in a room and things turn volatile. Too many secrets, too many weaknesses, and I don't know if we know each other too well or not well enough, the way we set each other off.
...You won't give me an answer, Jack, because you won't see this. And maybe I should make sure of that. Maybe I should burn this, but I already know I won't.
Some things should be said. Some things need to be remembered. And maybe I will be able to show you this, one day, when the worst of all of this is behind us both.
I hope so. But I'm not holding my breath.
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I sometimes worry, just because with Suzie, I've had to go off the edges of the map, and I'm never quite sure just where the right place to take her is. She was complex enough in canon already, and putting her in situations where she's got access to the insides of Jack's head... Yeah.
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*scritches* Yeah, I get that with a lot of my canon characters, so I totally know that feeling- it's sometimes scary and sometimes even going with my instincts makes me go, "But... Wait!" But if you want one person's opinion, I think the places you go with Suzie and where you take her are always fun to read and even more fun to interact with, so... Yes. *noms* ♥
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